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posted 04. September 2002 08:53
E. COLI AT THE NO FREE LUNCHROOM
Bacterial Flagella and Dembski’s Case for Intelligent Design
http://www.aaas.org/spp/dser/evolution/perspectives/vantillecoli.pdf
Abstract:The Intelligent Design movement argues that it can point to specific biological systems that exhibit what ID’s chief theorist William A. Dembski calls “specified complexity.” Furthermore, Dembski claims to have demonstrated that natural causation is unable to generate this specified complexity and that the assembling of these biological systems must, therefore, have required the aid of a non-natural action called “intelligent design.” In his book, No Free Lunch, Dembski presents the bacterial flagellum as the premier example of a biological system that, because he judges it to be both complex and specified, must have been actualized by the form-conferring action of an unembodied intelligent agent. However, a critical examination of Dembski’s case reveals that, 1) it is built on unorthodox and inconsistently applied definitions of both “complex” and “specified,” 2) it employs a concept of the flagellum’s assembly that is radically out of touch with contemporary genetics and developmental biology, and 3) it fails to demonstrate that the flagellum is either “complex” or “specified” in the manner required to make his case. If the bacterial flagellum is supposed to demonstrate ID, then ID is a failure.
[ 04 September 2002, 08:53: Message edited by: Moderator ]
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